PharmacoNutrition Reviewed

Source: Nutrition & Metabolism (2007), 4: 5 (Open Access)
Article Type: Original Research
Authors: W Zhou, P Murkerjee, MA Kiebish, WT Markis, JG Mantis, TN Seyfried

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Ketogenic diets have been in clinical use for more than 80 years, primarily for the symptomatic treatment of epilepsy. In contrast to other organs, the brain almost exclusively needs glucose to satisfy its energy requirements. As an alternative, the brain can utilize ketone bodies for generating energy and fuelling its metabolism. Normal, healthy brain cells can better cope with this shift in energy source than tumour cells. Admittedly, to combat malignant brain cancer this way is a smart idea, especially as it appears so simple by using principles of evolutionary biology. And the concept works well, at least in this preclinical study on mice with implanted brain tumours. Mice fed a ketogenic diet displayed reduced glucose and enhanced ketone levels, finally causing the starvation of cancer cells. Cancer cells are also quite susceptible to oxidative stress; ketones, however, reduce the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), as shown in neurons exposed to glutamate excitotoxicity (Maalouf et al.).
Of note, the same, i.e. the shift from glucose to ketone body metabolism, also happens in times of caloric restriction which has been shown to enhance the life span of many animal species.
All in all, the issue of using ketone bodies and ketonic diets for improving human health is quite promising, although much still needs to be done to fully understand the nature of their biological action.

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